Agency Under Fire In Arms Probe Delays

WASHINGTON — Congressional critics, angered by revelations late last week of two separate delays in a federal investigation into weapons smuggling from the United States to Nicaraguan rebels, have stepped up calls for an independent inquiry of the Justice Department`s handling of the matter.

On Friday, the Justice Department confirmed that it recently had asked the FBI to halt an inquiry in Miami for at least a week for ``legitimate national security concerns.`` Well-placed sources said senior department officials sought the delay in late October and early November because of fears that the investigation could jeopardize negotiations for Americans held hostage in Lebanon.

And in a less-publicized development, a federal public defender charged that an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami had berated him and his investigator, telling them they might face a grand jury if they didn`t stop their investigation into allegations of gun smuggling and drug trafficking by some of the rebels` U.S. backers.

Congressional critics have said the Justice Department`s handling of the Miami investigation has been reluctant and plodding. The revelations about the apparent delays have prompted some Democratic congressmen to step up calls for an independent counsel to take over the Miami inquiry as well as a broader investigation of arms sales to Iran and the possibly illegal diversion of money from those sales to the contras trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.

``The special prosecutor must be empowered to include in his or her investigation the inquiry which the Justice Department says is now the subject of a grand jury in Miami and how the Justice Department itself has conducted its investigation,`` said Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.).

(National Public Radio reported Saturday that federal judges had chosen Lawrence E. Walsh, 74, of Oklahoma City, a former president of the American Bar Association, as independent counsel to lead a criminal investigation in the Iran-contra matter. Walsh and two members of the three-judge panel refused to confirm the report.)

A Kerry spokesman said the claims about a March 14 meeting between Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Feldman and two FBI agents on one side, and federal public defender John Mattes and investigator Ralph Maestri on the other, were of special concern to legislators who have questioned the legality of a private U.S. network supplying the contras.

Kerry has criticized Justice Department officials for failing to pursue Mattes` and Maestri`s leads more vigorously.

Law enforcement sources have said federal authorities in Miami started the inquiry early this year and then seemed to drop it. The sources said the authorities revived the investigation after a supply plane was shot down over Nicaragua Oct. 5 and brought the inquiry before a grand jury in Miami in early November.

Mattes and Maestri had been conducting their own investigation on behalf of a client, Jesus Garcia, a former Dade County corrections department employee. Garcia was convicted in December of 1985 of a federal weapons violation. Considered a minor figure among U.S. contra supporters, Garcia has said he thought he was working to help fight communism.

But Garcia also is reported to have provided the government with information--people, places, dates and times--of a shadowy private network that is funneling weapons to the contras in violation of U.S. laws. Mattes and some congressional investigators used these leads to pursue their own inquiry, interviewing Americans and Britons in Costa Rica about their roles.

Garcia reportedly first gave the government the information in December of 1985, but federal authorities were slow to act upon it, a source with first-hand knowledge of the exchange said. In fact, the source said, the government had failed to interview a long list of witnesses given to them by Garcia until after the March confrontation between the prosecutor and Mattes and Maestri.

Mattes said Feldman summoned him from a hearing in Ft. Lauderdale to meet with him in Miami. Mattes brought Maestri along.

``It was one of the more hostile meetings I have ever attended,`` said one source involved in the meeting. ``When someone shouts, shouts that you are going to see the inside of a grand jury room, that`s hostile.``

``When a guy`s threatening you with a subpoena, I take that as a direct threat.``

Mattes said Feldman told him and Maestri that they could face an investigation into obstruction of justice and witness tampering if they continued to probe the alleged illegal pipeline of weapons.

Ana Barnett, the top assistant to U.S. Atty. Leon Kellner, has denied that any efforts were taken by the U.S. attorney`s office to impede the investigation.

The pressure reportedly exerted against Garcia`s defenders came at a time when President Reagan was lobbying Congress to reverse a 1984 ban and approve $100 million in contra aid.